Ricky Forbes – Storm Chasing & Netflix’s “Tornado Hunters”

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Most people spend their lives running from storms. Ricky Forbes runs straight into them—and he's been doing it for over a decade. Having documented more than 500 tornadoes from the heart of some of the planet's most violent weather systems, the Saskatchewan-born storm chaser has built a career doing what most would consider reckless. Yet there's nothing reckless about it. For Forbes, storm chasing is a pursuit of authenticity, a quest to witness nature at its most raw and unfiltered. It's also landed him on Netflix's *Tornado Hunters*, where millions now follow him into the tempests.

When we spoke with Forbes on a Friday evening, fresh snow blanketing his Canadian home, he came across as grounded and thoughtful—not the adrenaline junkie you might expect. He's someone who's chosen a life of extremes not to prove something, but to live fully and document the planet's most compelling natural phenomena. It's a philosophy that feels increasingly rare in our sanitized, risk-averse culture.

Forbes grew up in small prairie towns across Saskatchewan, the kind of places where a population of a thousand felt substantial. His province sits at the northern edge of Tornado Alley, that notorious corridor stretching from Texas up through the American heartland and into Canada, sweeping across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. While his region experiences five to ten tornadoes annually—nothing compared to the volatile south—it's enough to create a landscape shaped by severe weather. Yet Forbes didn't stumble into storm chasing because he grew up surrounded by tornadoes. His origin story is more nuanced than that, rooted in something deeper than geography.

What strikes you talking with Forbes is his matter-of-fact approach to extreme conditions. He describes minus-40-degree Celsius winters and multi-foot snowfalls with the casual tone of someone discussing a light drizzle. In Saskatchewan, he explains, life doesn't pause for weather. Schools don't close, roads don't shut down, and people simply adapt. "Our world can't shut down otherwise we'd be shut down for four or five months," he says, drawing a contrast to places like England where a couple of millimetres of snow can paralyze entire regions. There's a philosophy embedded in that pragmatism—a refusal to let conditions dictate your life, but rather to work with them, understand them, and ultimately, chase them.

What makes Forbes compelling isn't just his technical expertise or his Netflix profile. It's his clarity about what drives him. He describes his pursuits—from documenting the wildest storms to spending time with loved ones at home—as "all in the quest of a life well lived." There's a spiritual quality to that statement, a recognition that chasing storms isn't about ego or daredeviltry. It's about bearing witness, about creating records of natural phenomena that most of us will never experience firsthand. In an age of manufactured content and artificial adventure, Forbes represents something genuine: a person pursuing a singular passion with discipline and respect for what he's encountering.

His work on *Tornado Hunters* has introduced his craft to a global audience, but the podcast conversation reveals something the screen can't quite capture—the thoughtfulness of someone who's spent eleven years in one of the most dangerous professions imaginable. He's survived being caught inside the world's largest tornado. He's seen things that challenge how we understand weather, physics, and human resilience. Yet he speaks about it all with an almost understated humility.

For those drawn to stories about people living authentically, pursuing mastery, and refusing to be confined by conventional boundaries, Ricky Forbes offers something worth your attention. The full conversation spans far more than we can capture here, diving deeper into what drives a man to willingly place himself in nature's most violent moments. Whether you're fascinated by extreme weather, interested in the psychology of risk-takers, or simply appreciate people committed fully to their craft, this episode deserves your time. Forbes embodies a particular kind of courage—not the flashy kind, but the quieter, more durable kind born from genuine curiosity and respect for forces far larger than ourselves.